


The Changeling

by kormantic



Category: Hanna (2011)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kormantic/pseuds/kormantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Miles says you’re as beautiful as a fairy.” Rachel said softly, tucking a strand of Hanna’s hair behind one ear and dabbing at her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket.  The blood came away quite easily; it was very fresh.  “And so you are.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Changeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepfighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepfighter/gifts).



> Many thanks to my huckleberry for cleaning this up!

There was blood spattered on Hanna’s cheek. In the watery light of the empty bus stop, if Rachel hadn’t known otherwise, she’d have thought it just a splash of mud: a particularly exuberant football match on a rainy field.

“Miles says you’re as beautiful as a fairy.” Rachel said softly, tucking a strand of Hanna’s hair behind one ear and dabbing at her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket.  The blood came away quite easily; it was very fresh.  “And so you are.”

Sebastian, staring and withdrawn, was seated on a station bench with Miles folded into his lap like an infant.  A standing Sophie leaned against him, stretching a comforting arm around his shoulders.  As for Miles, he was very white.  His dark lashes fanned his stark cheeks and his full lower lip, so like Sophie’s, looked quite purple in the bluish glow of the neon sign announcing the station.  Rachel was almost certain he hadn’t seen anything; he’d been in the last storage unit, well out of the line of sight.  But that last bandy little skinhead had managed a shrill, burbling scream before Hanna had finished him.  And there had been so much blood.

It had taken Rachel several hours to realize that she and her family were going to die. There was nothing official about Marissa Wiegler’s investigation, that much had been immediately clear.  But her hooligans stalking like hyenas in the shadows had promised endlessly creative torture, and lingering death.  There had been nothing in their eyes but blank anticipation.  They had been held three days – fed and watered regularly, allowed to relieve themselves in a rusted corner of a decaying metal shed.  She imagines that the only reason they hadn’t been killed outright was the outside chance that they might be useful as bargaining chips.  Perhaps there had been some notion that Hanna might have given herself up in return for their safe release.

Perhaps that was even true.

After Hanna had dropped her little iron knife into the spreading darkness of that young man’s blood, she’d whispered, “You’ll be safe now.”

The child had certainly risked exposure, over and above life and limb, to retrieve them from the container park.  And if Agent Weigler had been acting to protect some secret of her own, complete with her own handpicked henchmen, then there was no reason to fear a larger hunt by any shadowy organizations, as the agency was unlikely to have sanctioned the disappearing of a white, upper-middle class English family.  

Rachel felt a surprisingly pleasurable comfort in realizing Ms. Wiegler must already be quite dead.

Peering into Hanna's wide, ice-blue eyes, Rachel asked, “Have you ever heard the story of The Changeling?”

“I had a book of fairy stories.  Changeling children were put in the oven, to make the trolls give the true child back.”

“Well, that is _one_ variation,” Rachel allowed.  “Folktales like that tried to excuse profound birth defects, you know.  They hadn’t the mechanisms to explain hydrocephaly or stillbirth.  In fact, the Igbo people of Nigeria have a similar myth: their changelings are called the _ogbanje_ , and we now think that the “bad spirit” they were referring to was sickle cell anemia.  But that’s not the kind of changeling I’m talking about.”

Judging Sophie and the others were out of earshot, Rachel settled Hanna on a free bench and sat beside her.  She kept her voice low and even, and her hands in plain sight.

“Sophie had a twin sister, you know.  Fraternal.  She died not long after she was born.  Sophie doesn’t remember her, and we have never told her.

“She was very fair, with fine curly hair.  Her name was Saoirse.

“Did you know that fairies are supposed to be very drawn to great beauty in children?  Particularly blonde hair.”  Rachel touched a crisp strand of Hanna’s hair where it had stuck to her soft pink lip and gently drew it away.

Hanna shook her head solemnly.

“There is a Swedish story called _Bortbytingen._ ”

“‘The Changeling’,” Hanna translated readily.

“Yes.  Do you know it?”

Hanna shook her head again, her halo of whitegold hair just touching the collar of Rachel’s bloodied shirt.  
   
“A lovely mortal child is stolen away by an old troll woman, who leaves her own baby in its place. The people of the town, offering the harsh advice of tradition, order the parents to beat the changeling child with a heavy cane in order to recover their own girl. The mother is only too willing to abuse the child, but the father's paternal instincts cause him to intercede on the changeling's behalf. Several times, the mother attempts to follow the town’s mandate by cruelly punishing, or even killing, the unwanted child, but each time her adopted father protects her.

“His kindness and perseverance are rewarded in the end, and the two children are restored to their original parents. Only then do we learn that during her absence, the human child had lived in an unseen parallel world. Every act of cruelty or of kindness visited upon the changeling by her human guardians had been duplicated upon her by her troll stepmother. It was a father's kindness and humanity that rescued the child.”

“In this story,” asked Hanna, her white brows meeting in query, “is Sophie a troll?”

Rachel felt the peal of laughter spring out of her fleet as a startled deer.  Sophie turned to frown at her disapprovingly; Sebastian and Miles showed no sign of having heard.

“My father is dead,” Hanna said simply.

“I know,” Rachel said.  “But we are your family now.  Will you stay with us?”

“Of course she will, don’t be stupid.”  Sophie, apparently attracted by her mother’s laugh, had crept up upon them quite soundlessly.  “After all, she carved that last one up like a Christmas goose, didn't she.  The least we can do is give her a place to kip.   _And_ buy her some new clothes,” Sophie added, with a critical appraisal of Hanna’s jumper.  “You will have to come to school, I’m afraid.”

“I should like to go to school.”

“You mustn't kill anyone there, though.  And I expect you’ll want to all the time.  I mean, you’ve been trained as a ninja or something, haven’t you?”

“Sophie,” Rachel said dryly, “I’m sure Hanna will be a model of restraint.”

Hanna nodded eagerly, and Sophie took her hand and lead her back to Sebastian, who blinked at her as if waking from a dream.

“Self-defense, Hanna.  You shall teach us all a class in self-defense,” he said.  Miles stirred and raised his head.

“Are you _sure_ she’s not a fairy?” he mumbled.

“Of course not.  D’you think a fairy would wear _those_ trainers?” Sophie said dismissively.

“I’m not a fairy,” Hanna reported.  “I’m a _bortbytingen.”_

“Okay,” sighed Miles comfortably, and fell back asleep.

END

_Rachel’s story was judiciously modified for her singular audience, and largely stolen from a synopsis by D.L. Ashliman of the Selma Lagerlöf story Bortbytingen, and his essay on changelings in folktales._

<http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html#selma>


End file.
